“No, I just want you to have fun.” She grinned back at me. “And maybe if we get drunk enough, we can both do it.”
“Yeah, that would be cool.” I grinned back at her. “And if TJ ever finds out, he will ban us from being friends.”
“TJ can’t ban me from anything.” She laughed. “Well, I guess it depends what he’s trying to ban me from and what he’s offering me in return, but he can’t just ban me ban me.”
“Uh huh, does TJ know that?”
“No.” She giggled. “He can think whatever he wants to think. And if he thinks he can ban me from something, then let him think that.”
“Cody can ban me from anything he wants to.” I closed my eyes. “Whatever he wants, I’d do. Whatever he said, I’d listen to. Just for the chance to be with him. Damn, if I had another chance at a night with him, I’d do whatever he wanted me to do in the bedroom.”
“Sally…” Mila’s voice sounded exasperated.
“I know, I sound pathetic.” I opened my eyes and looked at her. “This is what your brother has done to me.” I put my hands up in the air and then clutched my heart. “Oh, broken heart of mine, how will I ever live and love another again? Cody Brookstone has stolen you away from me and I fear you may never be mine again.” I shook my head melodramatically and fell back into the chair behind me. Mila just stood there, watching me with a semi-concerned expression, and I knew she was wondering if she’d made a mistake by bringing up her plan in the first place. It wasn’t working out well and, if anything, the added friendship that Cody and I now had was threatening to tear me in two. I didn’t want to be his confidante and best friend. I wanted to be his lover and the love of his life.
* * *
“This is the bar that all the hot guys go to?” I looked at Mila with a discouraged face as we walked into Random’s, the bar Mila had been building up for the last hour.
“Yes.” She gave me a weak smile and I watched her face turn towards the bar and the two middle-aged balding men who were sitting there drinking beers. “Maybe we’re early.”
“It’s nine thirty.” I gave her a look. “When do the hotties come out?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Ten thirty?”
“Uh, okay.” I sighed, my spirit sinking. “Exactly who told you that this was the happening place for single women?”
“Yelp,” Mila admitted sheepishly.
“Yelp!” I groaned. “You know the bar owner probably posted some fake reviews to attract suckers like us.” I shook my head and looked around the bar once again. “And it looks like it only worked on us.” Except for us and the two middle-aged men at the bar, there was a big bulky tattooed guy sitting with a really skinny girl who looked like she was high on drugs. The bar was dark, dirty and dingy and I was confident that I would be spending no time dancing on the bar top this evening or any other evening.
“Let’s just get one drink and we can go somewhere else,” Mila said encouragingly as she walked towards the bar. “Maybe the first drink will make us feel better.”
“Of course alcohol will make us feel better. The question is do we want to feel better in this dump?”
“Sally.” Mila looked at me with widened eyes as we both realized that the bartender had heard me.
“You ladies want a drink?” He looked over at me and barely bat an eyelid.
“Sure,” I said and reached into my bag to grab my purse, feeling slightly embarrassed that he’d heard me. What if he turned out to be the bar owner? It wasn’t his fault that he ran a dumpy bar. I mean, he was trying to gain new clientele it seemed, if his fake Yelp reviews were to be believed.
“What do you want?” he said again, looking bored. The expression on his face almost made me turn back around.
“We’ll get two vodka sprites, please,” Mila said. “Ketel One, if you have it.”
“Ketel what?” the bartender asked, looking confused.
“Ketel One Vodka?” Mila said hesitantly. “It’s, uhm, a brand.”
“I have Smirnoff.”
“That’s fine,” she said quickly, and I sighed. “This is going to be a long night,” I whispered to her. “I might have been happier lying in bed, crying my eyes out.”
“Sally, that’s not funny,” Mila chided me, but I could see the smile in her eyes. “I promise the next bar will be much better.”
“Uh huh, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I keep my promises.” She looked hurt.
“You said this place would be swarming with hotties and the only thing I think it’s swarming with is hep B and C.”
“Sally,” she chided me again, but this time we both started laughing. The bartender handed us over our drinks and we slid onto the two bar stools in front of us. I saw the two middle-aged men giving us the once-over and I gave one of them a scornful look. As if! To my shock, the guy stuck his tongue out of his mouth and flicked it against his lips. I looked away from him quickly and then at Mila.
“I am going to kill you,” I mouthed to her before taking a huge gulp of my drink. “And it will be a painful death. A very, very painful death.”